just know the specs, do your homework, know the rarity, what it looks like (if there is an actual picture taken by the seller), feedback, etc etc.

people who have pictures of DTS audio SALO DVDs or DTS City of God...hmm yea no.

Regarding the Disney DVD, I have not seen the original DVD, but what makes me suspicious is that it is a private auction. Private auctions are quite often trouble. Bidders cannot contact one another to confront a problem seller.

Check all the auctions he has sold in the past. TONS of Disney DVDs...smells fishy.

Here are a coupe of links to some faqs on anime bootlegs:
http://www.digital.anime.org.uk/piratefaq.html#dvd
http://www.jazzmess.com/merch/bootlegfaq.html

I would say that for anime series, 99.99% of the ones on E-Bay, Half.com, and Amazon's Marketplace are bootlegs, if they have one or more of the following:
The entire ~26 episode series on 3-4 discs.
All region, or Region 0
Chinese and English subs
a buy it now price of $29-$39
These are usually packed in a "digipack"

Not sure how this thread turned into "how to spot a bootleg on EBAY". Suppose everyone has an experience on that note. Sad.

The first thing that I've noticed on a few movies floating around locally is the cover scanning. It's usually poor, with bad print contrast easily picked off after reviewing the lettering. And typically, the pictures and artwork is faded, if not just to a degree. I've noticed this is the case consistently with five different movies. A Yahoo email on the rear cover doesn't actually help. Anyway, copies I've seen: Miike's Rainy Dog, Ley Lines; Kitamura's Azumi - 2 disk limited; Battle Royale and last, Natural City - 2 disk limited.

I love their pictures of the bootleg and legitimate versions of The Little Mermaid. The legitimate edition has the word limited misspelled.

I'm afraid you got ripped off. While the disc appears authentic, it is fullscreen!

While I still believe this is not an authentic release, it isnt for that reason. The paragraph below is from a review of the 101 Dalmations Limited Issue DVD on ultimatedisney.com

VIDEO and AUDIO

The feature is presented in the full screen aspect ratio of the original animation, although it is debatable how this was originally shown in all cinemas; it is the opinion of some that the film was to be matted to an approximate 1.85:1 ratio for theatrical projection. However I doubt this is the case, as none of the shots on the DVD seem to suffer from an abundance empty space at the top or bottom of the picture.

The transfer used for the DVD seems to have been taken off one of the film's theatrical re-releases. This is suggested by the presence of the blue Walt Disney Pictures "Castle" Logo at the film's opening and conclusion. It certainly makes sense for Disney copy a newer print of the film to DVD.

It seems it is supposed to be a full screen presentation.

However, as mentioned earlier, the lack of security stickers and the non-factory wrap, make me suspect this is a high-quality bootleg. I am still hoping for confirmation so I can address it with the seller

I don't think he was saying "yours is a boot because it's fullscreen," i think he was taking a (slightly uneducated) jab at the 4:3 presentation of the film.

The disc you have looks exactly like the one I have, white case and all.

I have purchased 30+ Laserdiscs on ebay & 100% of them where the real thing. No boots at all.

Are you really getting DTS sound on a bootleg?

who's talking laserdiscs? :)

Yes and no.

If you play the disc after choosing DTS sound, your receiver will most likely see a DTS signal. But whoever makes these things has basically "encoded" the Dolby Digital signal into a DTS one. I've heard it's pretty simple to do on a PC and no doubt they've figured out how to do it on a large scale. But you're in NO WAY getting an official DTS track.

If they are suppose to have DTS in another region is it possible that they are playing DTS in R1? If that makes sense.

I think I know what you're saying and no, it's not possible. Some regions are PAL in which case the sound would be sped up and wouldn't play in a R1 system. They also couldn't sync the sound up.

I guess it's possible that they would bootleg a foreign version and remove the region encoding but doubtful.

Just buy the legit version. Jeez. Is it that difficult?

Well, I bought some before I knew what was going on. I didn't realize what I was purchasing. They said DTS and I was just trying to find out if the ones I had could produce what they said. Yes, for me it has been difficult to find DTS movies from other regions. For example: Kiss of the Dragon R2 Germany with 6.1 dts es, Signs R2 Japan with 6.1 dts es, The Transporter R2 Japan 6.1 dts es, Face/Off dts, and Con Air dts to name a few. Unless, you can direct me.

Thanks!

Check out the international forum for answers to your questions. Did you actually check out any foreign retailers before going to Ebay? Believe it or not, Ebay isn't great for everything. You might actually have to go to another website.

Long Version:
in my naivete, I purchased some "New and Sealed" R1 DVD's on eBay reported to have DTS. When I received them, I happily scanned their UPC codes to log them in DVD Profiler, but to my chagrin, I discovered some peculiar incongruities.

The artwork looked like the original, but for the DVD "Bruce Almighty", the back page artwork was different. The ISBN number on the case was for "Blue Crush", while the UPC Bar Code was for "Rear Window". Also the UPC number did not match the bar code. Likewise, while the Finding Nemo back cover said "Made in USA, Disney Enterprises, Inc." the ISBN number printed was for "The Great Mouse Detective"

Luckily after I addressed my concerns to the seller, I returned them and got my money refunded. Lesson learned. I still purchase DVD's from eBay, now and then, but not from that seller.

Short Version: Caveat Emptor!

I'm pretty sure that only looks like an "N" instead of an "M" because it is a bad scan and small file size.

It looks to me like it is not a boot, but that it is not really new... It was quite likely a used disc that was re-shrinkwrapped (verrry easily done) to look new.

Short verison...don't buy discs on ebay that have DTS if R1 doesn't have DTS and it's a R1 disc. It's pretty simple.

I don't recall that person excluding them from his comment about Boots.

I've never seen a bootleg laserdisc. As far as I know, they don't exist. And he wasn't asking about laserdiscs and only was asking about DVD's, therefore excluding them. It is called "DVDtalk" after all.

Here in NYC boots show up on the street all the time. They are usually easy to spot but the quality of the cover/back artwork keeps getting better and many have art directly printed on to the CD back (not the paper labels).

I never buy boots from these guys but I hear that in some cases the actual DVD quality can be OK to very good. AFAIK, boot copies still cannot have the true interactive menu systems of the originals. Is this true? I would imagine it's only a matter of time before they get into duplicating the menu architecture too.

There is one fellow on the street who sells what I believe to be originals, not booted dupes, for relatively cheap. They are never really cheap and they always have all the complete paper art including sleeves and inserts, and even the security labels. I was skeptical with all the boots around here but I tried one and it seemed fine. I've bought maybe a half dozen or so others from him since including titles like Scarface and the Alien Quad set. The packaging is complete and the DVD's play perfectly with all functioning interactive menus. I don't know how he gets these but IMO they have to be factory issue and he's just got some source that maybe eliminates some middle step costs.

...the German DVD (rated FSK 16) was cut...

. . . :o . . .